text:
D.C. "Fete Select TV" Crenshaw, NBC5 Street Team
Wouldn't it be nice if everyday was Friday? Well supposedly the tropical island of Eivissa evokes the type of energy where every night out seems like a Friday night celebration. Eivissa, the Catalan name for Ibiza, is known for its summer club parties that attract a ton of tourists and a lot of publicity. It's no wonder why the owners of the new tapas restaurant Eivissa are attempting to bring that same type of energy to Old Town. The concept sounds cool, but can the new kid on the block pull it off? Maybe for partying, but not so much for the cuisine.The best thing about Eivissa are their "Islas Baleares" cocktails and "Chupitos" (infused shots). Their standard red sangria is infused with vanilla beans and Ceylon cinnamon for a warm, spicy taste. But after the alcoholic beverages nothing else is memorable, except for their Pinxtos, a unique mixture of morsels on toasted bread. The "Salpicon Aioli", consisting of different seafood was the winner in this category. Their classical tapas are just average and be sure to order more cocktails to help wash down the dry "Croquetas De Jamon". The "Carnes-Meats" section featured a duck and asparagus dish. My advice is to take the asparagus and leave the duck. The dessert menu featured a tart, rice pudding, and a chocolate churro, but I was too disappointed with the service to move on to the next course. Oh, did I mention service? Two words sum up the service. Not good. The communication or lack there of with the server was frustrating. There was no explanation of the menu and dishes were slower than normal to arrive at the table, despite a sparse lunch crowd. The restaurant is nicely designed, but a return visit is necessary to determine the vibe. Eivissa is not a first choice for tapas, but their fabulous drinks may have the Old Town folks sipping libations on their patio throughout the summer.
Eivissa is located at 1531 N. Wells St. Log onto www.eivissachicago.com for more information. Check out www.efete.net for more restaurant reviews and an inside look into Chicago's newest and hottest restaurants.


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LGBT resources
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If you do not have login details please speak to your Head Teacher, Chair of Governors or Manager in the first instance. Any further enquiries please contact email@example.com.

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Bell Electronics NW, Inc.
Address: 19725 Russell Road, Kent, WA 98032 United States
Business Type: Distributor, Service
Description: Since 1984, Bell Electronics has been providing high quality test and measurement equipment to our customers at a substantial cost savings. Whether you're in the market to buy, sell, or rent, Bell Electronics is your complete test and measurement equipment resource. You can count on our in-depth... (more)


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I don't know if it have been discussed already but I often forgot about the wiki and it contain some valuable informations (when you dig deep). I think it could be a good thing to make the wiki more "visible". Is it possible to add a link in forum header to go to the wiki page and also a forum link in the wiki header?
Also, what are the rules for contributing? I was looking for an area where I could post the 3dsMax scripts I added today but found nothing about 3ds Max. I think a section for 3ds Max and Blender could be usefull, there's some T3D tutorials for both that I remember having watched a while back. Do we have the freedom to add anything and someone look at the submission and decide to publish it or not? Is that how it work?
I have never participate a lot in the community I joined and I think it's time to give back because I have learn so much from the T3D community (From here and the years that we were on GG forum). But I don't know how it work to contribute also I'm affraid of adding new stuff and doing it wrong...
Anyway, I'm not saying that I would fill complete sections of the wiki as I'm definitly not a good writter especially in english but I'm pretty sure I could help by providing some ressources or links that I used over the years. So can someone give me a little "Wiki Contribution 101" lesson please?


text:
Hello Kitty Bowtastic Waste Bag 9 rolls
By Hello Kitty
The Hello Kitty phenomena finally reaches pet products, and it's not just cats having all the fun, it extends to dogs too - massive yay!
These Hello Kitty Bowtastic Waste Bags are part of an extensive range of Hello Kitty pet accessories, now available at PetsPyjamas. The beautiful thing about this collection, apart from the obvious cuteness of it all, is that everything is carefully designed to be as functional as it is pretty and that all materials are completely safe, durable and of high quality. If you love Hello Kitty then you need this range in your life - and that's a fact.
Additional information and key product features:
Hello Kitty Bowtastic Waste Bags
Constructed from durable materials,
Lightweight, scented and easy to tear,
Quick, convenient and stylish,
Supplied as 3 packs of 3 rolls containing 15 bags per roll.
Product code: PBR-00153
- UK Delivery (Non-Mainland) - UK Standard Delivery - £2.99
- UK Delivery (Mainland) - UK Standard Delivery - £2.99 (Free for orders over £35.00) - Delivery Time: 3 to 5 days
This item will be dispatched to you direct by our partner seller Pet Brands who follows the general PetsPyjamas returns policy:
Please check your items on delivery. If you wish to return an item, it should be returned to our partner seller directly and not to PetsPyjamas. If you wish to organise a return, exchange or refund of any item, please go to the returns page on our website at www.petspyjamas.com/returns. For standard items, you have 7 days, from receipt of goods, to notify our partner and you must return goods at your own cost within 14 days of receiving the item.
For damaged/faulty items, you must contact us within 48 hours at email@example.com. To help speed up the returns process, we recommend you send us photographic evidence of the relevant item. You will then be issued with return guidance from us.
You must return items unused, in a saleable condition, with any labels still attached and in the original packaging that you received them in. Any items that do not comply with these guidelines, we hold the right to not refund. You should use a 'signed for' delivery method and obtain proof of postage.
Please note any exemptions and exceptions to the standard returns procedure, where the following items are likely to be non-returnable and non-refundable: personalised/customised items, perishable products (such as food), grooming products, large items of furniture which are often custom made and custom homewares. Please make sure you understand the relevant partner sellers' policies whenever you buy.
Please see www.petspyjamas.com/petspyjamas-returns/ for full PetsPyjamas general returns information.
Please click here for full PetsPyjamas general returns information.
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text:
Installation of an Orbitally Welded Hygienic Piping System - A Case Study
Installation of an Orbitally Welded Hygienic Piping System
Image courtesy of ATW Services
In response to increased demand for the production of an asthma drug, an expanded hygienic piping system was installed in a UK manufacturing plant. The system was designed to provide process services for two blow-fill-seal (BFS) packaging machines, and to replace the original hand-welded system with an orbitally welded one. Several advanced design concepts were incorporated into the installation to satisfy the goals of cleanability and sterilizability. The packaging suite was designated as a clean room to prevent contamination of the product during the BFS process. Some of the implemented features, and guidelines for similar projects, are presented in this article.
The pharmaceutical technology industry has developed accepted practices for the design, fabrication and installation of process piping and equipment, such that process systems may operate in a clean and sterile manner. It is also appreciated that the materials of construction must not affect the purity of the product. The material most commonly used for tanks, vessels and piping is stainless steel. Other components, such as gaskets and seals, may be made of other materials if they can tolerate the high temperatures reached during steam sterilization. The fabrication and welding must also be done in such a way that the corrosion resistance of the system is not compromised. The design features discussed in this article, consistent with the goals of cleanability and sterilizability, were implemented in the recent installation of a hygienic piping system at Boehringer Ingelheim's site in Bracknell, UK.
Zero deadleg valves
Zero deadleg valves were used to minimize deadlegs in critical areas of the piping system. In less critical areas, it was permissible for valves to be connected with tees or bends. A deadleg in a piping system is defined as a pocket, tee or extension from a primary piping. The term L/D applies, in which L is equal to the leg extension perpendicular to the 'normal' direction of flow and D is equal to the i.d. of the extension or leg. For pharmaceutical process piping systems, it is desirable to keep the deadlegs to a minimum. Although an L/D of 2:1 is achievable with current design technology for valving and piping, 4:1 is considered acceptable for most bioprocess and pharmaceutical applications. A large L/D makes it more difficult to achieve a sterile condition with steam sterilization because air pockets prevent steam reaching all surfaces:1 If deadlegs exist in a system, some provision should be made for flushing them through.
Effectiveness of the cleaning system
The successful operation of the process depends upon the design and operation of the cleaning system. The use of clean steam for thermal disinfection is suitable in pharmaceutical applications in which steam enters the processing equipment and contamination of the product must be avoided. Clean steam differs from plant steam by the requirement for chemical purity, such that additives (for example, corrosion inhibitors) are not used. Pure steam is similar to clean steam, but must be virtually free of pyrogens or endotoxins and generally uses water-for-injection (WFI) as feedwater.2
Delivering steam at sufficient temperature and pressure to ensure sterilization requires careful engineering.3 The installed process system features a clean steam generator that makes steam from deionized water and sends it to the clean steam header (CSH) at a rate of 150 kg/h at 3 bar. The header volume is 20 L at 2 bar. Outlets from the header supply the mixing vessel and holding tanks with two separate lines for the blow-fill-seal machines (rommelag ag, Buchs, Switzerland). The header design promotes fractionation of dry steam and condensates, so that dry steam is delivered via the manifold and the condensate exits via the bottom through a steam trap. Both the 6 in. diameter CSH, which is enclosed in a 10 in. insulating jacket, and the piping entering and leaving the CSH are insulated to conserve heat.
Figure 1: Details of the clean steam generator and header that deliver clean steam to the process piping and vessels for sterilization. The piping and header are jacketed to conserve heat.
Figure 2: Details of piping system, showing swing bends used to select routing of product. Completely welded systems must be physically connected. Such a design should prevent operator error.
To be effective as a sterilant, clean steam must be delivered dry, saturated and without entrained air. Clean steam condensate must not be allowed to flow back into aseptic process systems during or after sterilization. In this system, connection to the 4 in. drain was made only when dumping water from the system, so that accidental backflow cannot occur. Steam traps were used to remove condensate and air from the system. Engineering of the system, including selection of piping diameters, was based on the temperature calculations for heat loss.
Engineering was also required to determine the details of placement and design of the sprayballs used for cleaning the vessels. The coefficient of discharge through the orifice was calculated to determine the size and number of holes in the sprayballs for the most efficient cleaning. Sprayballs should produce a uniform spray coverage over a defined area of the equipment with no decline in performance, and with ±20% variation in flow rate or ±20% change in pressure at design conditions. The location of the sprayballs must also be planned to avoid thermal shadows if temperatures fail to achieve sterility.
Swing bends
It is desirable for high-purity piping systems to be designed to minimize the number of clamp or hygienic (sanitary) connections and fittings and, if practical, piping systems should be installed in which all the joints are welded. In the Boehringer project, flexible connections, which were initially specified for connecting the piping for sterilizing or charging the vessels, were replaced with a swing-bend design featuring all-welded connections. The new design minimizes operator error, which literally could send the product down the drain.
Figure 3: Tank bottoms and piping are sloped to promote complete drainability (image provided by ATW Services).
Drainability is an essential feature of any hygienic piping system. Retained fluid in the piping provides a medium where bacteria could grow, adding an unacceptable bioburden to the system. Retained fluid could also promote corrosion, leading to product contamination. The utilization of gravity has been found to be the most effective method of removing all traces of liquid from a process system. The piping system was therefore designed with falls or slopes to ensure complete drainability. The tong runs of piping leading to drains were sloped to provide a 1:100 fall, which is equivalent to approximately 0.125 in./ft, and the bottoms of the tanks were sloped to ensure that pools of liquid do not accumulate on the vessel bottoms.
Bursting discs
Bursting discs were installed on the holding tanks to provide pressure relief. These devices must also conform to acceptable L/D standards for cleanability. Bursting discs were used in preference to spring-loaded safety valves which, once opened, might not reseal or might open momentarily and lose sterility.
Orbital welding
For critical pharmaceutical piping systems, it is better, when possible, to use orbital welding because of the superior quality of the welds and the repeatability of the process. Orbital welding provides precise control of the heat input into the weld that cannot be duplicated with manual processes and generally results in better corrosion resistance than manual welding. In situations where the use of orbital welding would create a deadleg or an unacceptable L/D, however, manual welding is preferred.
The orbital welding power supply employs pulsed arc GTAW (gas tungsten arc welding), formerly known as TIG (tungsten inert gas). Weld parameters, controlled by the power supply, include primary and background values of pulsed welding current, primary and background pulse times and rpm, which determines the surface travel speed of the tungsten electrode. Each level of the weld programme is precisely timed, where a level change typically implies a change of primary welding current. At the start of the arc, rotation is delayed to allow the formation of a weld puddle or pool, which completely penetrates the tubing wall. The gradual downslope of the current at the end of the weld prevents cracks or craters that might form if the current were cut off abruptly. The power supply at the installation at the Boehringer site was equipped with a water cooling unit, which circulates water through the weld heads and cables during welding to keep them cool.
Three different sizes of weld head were used on the various tubing sizes. With orbital welding, the tube remains in place while an arc is struck between a tungsten electrode and the weld joint. The electrode, installed in the weld head rotor, orbits the weld joint to complete the weld. These weld heads are all of the 'enclosed' type, in which the body of the weld head, filled with an inert gas, forms an enclosed chamber around the entire weld joint. The inert gas, usually argon, forms a shield that protects the outside of the weld joint from oxidation during the weld sequence. The inside of the weld joint must also be purged with inert gas. The enclosed type weld head is particularly suitable for high-purity purging. If a small gap exists between components being welded, it ensures that no air enters the inside of the tube, only argon from the weld head. Tube alignment is critical in pharmaceutical applications where offset of the weld joint members would create a ridge on the inner surface of the tube that would prevent complete drainability.
Piping systems
Orbital welding was specified for the pipe-work that supplies hydraulics to the cylinders on the mould tool (rommelag) because this system, which opens the mould once the ampoules have been made and filled, runs at approximately 100 bar and was thus considered to be particularly critical. To ensure the quality and consistency of these welds, seamless 316L tubing specified to ASTM A269 was used. For tubing that came into contact with the product, pure steam or deionized water, orbitally welded 316L tubing specified to ASTM A270 was used. This tubing had an internally polished bore of approximately 20 Ra maximum (roughness average in micro-inches) or better. These systems included a 2 in. o.d. (outer diameter) line for deionized water, a 0.5-1.0 in. o.d. line for clean steam, and 0.5 in. o.d. lines for compressed air and cold water. The 0.5 in. o.d. stainless steel product line was also orbitally welded. Orbital welding was not used on the non-critical copper chilled-water piping nor on the 4 in. stainless steel drain line, which was welded manually and had no defined internal quality requirement other than to clean and descale. Longitudinal welds from the manufacture of this tubing were also removed. Random samples of tube and fittings were checked to verify surface finish.
Welding in areas of limited clearance. Most pharmaceutical piping systems tend to have a few welds where clearance is so limited that it is not possible to mount an orbital weld head.4 Inevitably, these joints must be welded manually. In the piping system at Boehringer Ingelheim, it was not possible to mount the 9CT-750 weld head on the 0.5 in. o.d. line from the mixing to the holding tanks, so this line was manually welded. A variety of devices exist to enable orbital weld heads to be mounted in areas with limited clearance or to fittings with short stubs or 'stick-outs .' If fittings designed for orbital welding (designated as long tangent) are used, they can generally be welded in a standard weld head without any modification. This requires a straight section of tube or fitting (on both sides of the weld head) of sufficient length to extend from the margins of the tube clamp inserts to the tungsten electrode, which is usually, but not always, located at the weld head centre line. For a 2 in. o.d. tube in a 9-2500 weld head, a straight section of 1.72 in. (43.7 mm) is required. For a 0.5 in. o.d. tube welded in a 9AF-750 head, this distance is 0.70 in. (17.8 mm).
If sections are shorter or no straight section is available, such as with short radius (industrial grade) elbows or bend the joint must usually be manually tacked in place prior to welding and welded in a head modified for this purpose. In such a head, the housing is removed from one side of the head and replaced with a gas seat to contain the shield gas within the head. The weld assembly is held in the head with tube clamp inserts located on one side of the head only. The tungsten electrode, held in a special tungsten extender, is located to the side of the head, which has the gas seats. In this configuration, it is possible to weld fittings or valves very close to the edge of the weld head. Special tools are available for welding short sanitary ferrules to tubing or fittings in these weld heads. Another type of tungsten extender, called a 'mushroom' because of its shape, has a bar holding the tungsten that can be positioned almost anywhere within the weld head. By using the mushroom, nearly all of the joints in a pharmaceutical piping system can be welded using only standard weld heads.5
It is easier to mount a head on a pipe with restricted clearance if the head is the smallest that can be used for the particular tube size being welded. Many contractors will use a single head size to weld several sizes of tube, such that it may be difficult to mount the head on the smallest tube size because of limited radial clearance between the lines of tubing. In addition, narrower weld heads are now available with water cooling, which should help increase the number of joints that can be orbitally welded in areas with limited axial clearance.
Weld criteria
Fusion butt welds for pharmaceutical applications, whether manual or orbital, should always be completely penetrated around the entire circumference, without excessive concavity or convexity of the outer or inner surface. The weld joint should be purged with a good quality purge gas to eliminate or minimize the appearance of oxidation on the inner surface. Cracks, crevices, porosity and welding dross (stag), which would interfere with complete fusion of the joint, should be avoided. The weld bead should be of uniform thickness, without thin spots, and the arc should not differ from side to side to such a degree that could result in a lack-of-fusion defect. Alignment of the weld components should be such that no ridge is formed on the inner surface of the weld joint, which would affect the drainability of the piping system. For proper alignment, the dimensional tolerances of the tubing and fitting ends must meet material specifications for diameter, wall thickness variations and ovality. In addition, a good machined square-end preparation is a prerequisite for consistent high-quality orbital welds.
Welding quality control
Welding quality control (QC) is the responsibility of the owner, but it is most important that owner and installer have similar expectations and are in agreement on weld quality before the start of a construction project. The best way to accomplish this is to have a written specification for welding and to make test coupons that conform to the specification on the actual materials to be used before the start of the job. On the Boehringer site, test coupons were made, examined for the criteria listed above and retained on file to be referred to in the event that a questionable weld was made. QC procedures required that the lines were labeled with the heat number (cast number) of the tubing, the date of welding, the weld number as it appeared on the ISO drawing, and the piping system number. In addition to being recorded on the pipe itself, all of this information was recorded in a weld log for future reference.
It is most important on a job such as this that all craft personnel are properly trained for the tasks they are expected to perform. The welding procedure, as well as the manual welders and orbital welding operators, were certified to BS 4870 part 4 and EN 287-288. Orbital welding operators received training from the manufacturer of the orbital welding equipment. They must be able to set up the equipment and write weld programmes (or schedules) for tubing or pipe sizes up to 6 in., which is the upper size limit of the orbital fusion welding equipment. Operators must also be able to enter the weld programme into the power supply and make a weld. They must then be able to evaluate the weld and make adjustments in the weld procedure or programme until an acceptable weld is achieved. A major benefit of orbital welding is that once an acceptable weld programme has been developed, the precise control of the process makes it possible to continue to make an unlimited number of similar high-quality welds. If the heat number of the material being welded changes, it is necessary to make a new test coupon and evaluate the weld as above. The only change normally required is an adjustment of a few amperes of welding current.
High-purity purging technology
Orbital welding in the semiconductor industry is used extensively for welding process gas lines for the manufacture of semiconductor devices and integrated circuits. The tubing used in that industry is 316L tubing, electropolished to a surface finish of 10 Ra or better. Purging for welding is done with argon or an argon/hydrogen mixture, purified to a low level (ppb), so that no visible sign of oxidation is present on the inner surface after welding.
Although high-purity purging technology has been the norm for the semiconductor industry, the pharmaceutical industry has traditionally been more lenient in its welding specifications. A light-straw coloured oxidation in the heat affected zone (HAZ) of welds on stainless steel tubing is generally acceptable. However, excessive heat tint or oxidation has been shown to reduce the corrosion resistance of stainless steel6 and has been implicated in the formation of rouge in pharmaceutical piping systems. Rouge consists of the products of corrosion that circulate through a piping system, where it may do little harm or may promote further corrosion and product contamination.7 Hansen et al. found that the pitting potentials of stainless steel tubing declined steeply when the oxygen content of the purge gas exceeded 100 ppm.8 Straw-coloured oxidation occurs at oxygen levels of approximately 25 ppm. Although some loss of corrosion resistance may occur with welding, recent studies have shown that this loss can be minimized by welding with argon gas purified to <0.1 ppm oxygen.9 Although the effects of deep heat tint cannot be reversed by passivation, evidence suggests that chelant passivation can reverse all or most of the changes in surface elements across the weld and HAZ when purified gas is used for the purge.
High-purity purging techniques require an ultra-clean source of purge gas, and this must be delivered to the inner surface of the weld joint without picking up significant amounts of atmospheric oxygen or moisture as it travels through the purge delivery system. ATW Services used a stainless steel diaphragm in the argon regulator, because the standard neoprene diaphragms are somewhat permeable to oxygen. Similarly, low permeability hoses and airtight purge plugs are needed to maintain the low oxygen and moisture levels in the purge gas. These procedures may seem extreme for a pharmaceutical installation, but if they can prevent the occurrence of rouge in the system, it will be worth the effort.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are under pressure to produce products safely, at reduced costs and to higher quality standards than in the past. Innovative system design and new manufacturing technologies will certainly play an important role in accomplishing these goals.10 Yet it is important to determine the cost-benefit ratio of new technologies to avoid inflating the costs without achieving the desired effects.
Orbital welding has become the standard method of joining piping systems for biotech and pharmaceutical processes in the USA, but in Europe it is still difficult to convince end-users that orbital welding and advanced fabrication technology is justifiable. A leading contractor in the USA has made more than 100000 orbital welds in critical pharmaceutical piping systems and, through continuous improvements of its standard operating procedures (SOPs), has reduced the reject rates of orbital welds to approximately 0.2%.11 Rework adds greatly to the expense of pharmaceutical installations. Clearly, it is cost-effective to do it right the first time. The quality of orbital welds also facilitates CIP/SIP (clean-in-place/steam-in-place) operations. The smoother weld bead makes cleaning more effective and may allow for longer intervals between cleaning and longer production runs, leading to higher profits. Considerable evidence suggests that orbital welding, particularly in combination with high-purity purging, results in better corrosion resistance of the piping systems. The combination of more advanced design concepts and orbital welding technology should help pharmaceutical companies to build better manufacturing facilities and compete more effectively in the future.
By Gary Littlewood, ATW Services, and Barbara K. Henon, Ph.D., Arc Machines, Inc.
- J.H. Young, "Engineering Aspects of Steam Sterilization," ASME Bioprocess Engineering Symposium Proceedings, ASME Winter Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, USA (1988).
- P.J. Smith, "Design of Clean Steam Distribution Systems," Pharm. Eng. 15(2), 72-79 (March/April 1995).
- T. Latham, "Clean Steam Systems," Pharm. Eng. 15(2), 8-19 (March/April 1995).
- B.K. Henon, "Welding of WDI and WFI Piping Systems for a Bioprocess Application," Pharm. Eng. 13(6), 18-24 (November/December 1993).
- B.K. Henon, "Case Study: Pfizer Animal Health Group Upgrades and Expands Facility with Orbital Welding and State-of-the-Art Equipment," Pharm. Eng. 16(2), 20-24 (March/April 1996).
- J. Kearns and J. Maurer, "Welding Guidelines to Minimize Service Degradation of Stainless Alloys in Bioprocess Systems," Fifth Annual Bioprocess Engineering Symposium, ASME Winter Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California, USA (1989).
- D. Coleman and R. Evans, "Fundamentals of Passivation and Passivity in the Pharmaceutical Industry," Pharm. Eng. 10(2), 43-49 (March/April 1990).
- J.V. Hansen, T.S. Nielsen and P. Aastrup, "Root Surface Quality Requirements - High Efficiency Purging or Pickling? Paper 46, Conference on Duplex Stainless Steels," Glasgow, UK (13-16 November 1994).
- B.K. Henon and A. Grant, "Orbital Welding for Hygienic Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Applications," 15th Annual Pharm Tech Conference, Oxford, UK (March 1996).
- J.A. Blanchard and A.A. Signore, "Cost-Effective cGMP Facilities," Pharm. Eng. 15(2), 44-54 (March/April 1995).
- K. Gilson, "Why Design Build?" presented at the ISPE Greater Los Angeles Chapter Workshop, California, USA (May 1994).
- Butt Welding with Filler Material
- Fixed Automation
- Narrow Groove Welding
- Socket or Fillet Welding
- Fusion Butt Welding
- 1,776 Joints Welded at Staples Center
- 316L Stainless Steel Tubing
- A Guide to Codes and Standards
- ASME Compliance
- Bioprocess Piping Applications
- CBERS Propulsion System
- Christmas Tree Assemblies
- Cleanroom Fabrication
- Corrosion Resistant Materials
- Delivers Treatment Plant on Time
- Draft Beer
- Duplex Stainless Steel Tubing
- Effects of Sulfur
- Hygienic Piping System
- IBM Semiconductor Process Tools
- ID Pressurization
- Improvements in Installation
- Improving Hygienic Design
- Installation of Pharmaceutical Process Piping
- Leak-Free Tubing
- Manufacturing Facility
- Matsushita
- Orbital Welds Take Flight
- Pfizer Animal Health Group
- Pharmaceutical Piping Systems
- Plutonium-Bearing Containers
- Powdered Milk
- Purge Gas Purity
- Record Keeping and Data Aquisition
- Reducing Costs and Improving Quality
- Sanitary Process Piping
- Semiconductor Process Gas Lines
- Small Diameter Tubing
- Soldadura y tecnología del siglo XXI
- Soudage TIG orbital du système de propulsion d'un satellite
- Stainless Steel Pipe for Water Systems
- Stainless Steel Tubing
- Ultra High Purity Stainless Steel
- Vaccine Production Plant
- Weld Overlay or Cladding
- ID Welding/Cladding
- Tube-to-Tubesheet


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You've never seen stamps like this.
Just as the United States rolls out its new Harvey Milk stamp, which goes on sale in May, to honor the LGBT movement, Finland revealed its new homoerotic stamps, which celebrates artist Tom of Finland. And they are amazing.
According to Slate, Finland plans to release the stamps this fall. In a statement by Itella Posti Oy, a postal service industry in Finland similar to U.S.P.S., the stamps will showcase artwork by the "confident and proud homoeroticism" of Tom of Finland, born Touko Laaksonen, known for his fetish art.
Laaksonen died in 1991 at the age of 71 but created over 3,5000 illustrations in 40 years. Itella says the artist is "beyond question the most influential creator of gay pornographic illustration."
"His emphatically masculine homoerotic drawings have attained iconic status in their genre and had an influence on, for instance, pop culture and fashion," the site reads. "In his works, Tom of Finland utilized the self-irony and humor typical of subcultures. ... The drawings on the stamp sheet represent strong and confident male figures typical of their designer."
The stamps will be released around the same time as an exhibition of Laaksonen's work at Finland's Postal Museum.
Itella worked with graphic artist Timo Berry and Susanna Luoto in order to select the works that will appear on the stamps.
Despite the progressive and inclusive move, Finland has yet to recognize same-sex marriage and transgender citizens can only legally change their gender after they are surgically sterilized.
From our media partner EDGE


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ASAP Rocky - Wassup
"Harlem rap sensation A.$.A.P Rocky teamed up with VICE to create a video inspired by Scarface, Belly, Enter The Dragon, The Warriors and, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory."
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They are Not Ours
I would die for my beliefs, I will fight for their rights
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Meat and Dairy Consumption Are Violently Destroying Earth's Wildlife
Meat and Dairy Consumption Are Violently Destroying Earth's Wildlife: It's time for the world to wake up to the incomparable devastation of meat and dairy consumption on wildlife animals.
Posted by libertyandjusticeforanimals at 5:05 PM
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Sunday, June 28, 2015
The Dog Factory - a Shocking BBC Documentary
Posted by libertyandjusticeforanimals at 12:12 AM
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Thursday, February 5, 2015
I am you, only different.
Borrowed from PETA....Human beings create temporary and arbitrary boundaries to exclude beings who aren't like them. Human beings have justified wars, slavery, sexual violence, and military conquests through the mistaken belief that those who are "different" do not experience suffering and are not worthy of moral consideration.
These boundaries change throughout history, and we're horrified now to recall the abuse inflicted on others once classified as outsiders: the extermination of Jewish people by the Nazis, the enslavement of African people by American plantation owners, and the slaughter of Christian people for entertainment by Roman centurions. Laws now forbid discrimination based on gender, race, religion, ability, age, and sexual orientation. Yet just a century ago, human beings who were seen as different by those with power faced torture, exploitation, and death.
Sometimes those in power claimed that juvenile or dark-skinned human beings couldn't feel pain. Sometimes the powerful claimed that their superiority was granted by God. Our society no longer believes that any human being has the right to rape, torture, or enslave another human being for any reason. We accept that all human beings share a fundamental value and celebrate our differences.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
We are taught the Golden Rule as young children, and all major religions teach principles of nonviolence and kindness. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Ethical treatment—the Golden Rule—must be extended to all living beings: reptiles, mammals, fish, insects, birds, amphibians, and crustaceans.
Would we imprison our children in cages too small for them to move? Would we violate our sisters and steal their babies? Would we deliberately infect our friends with diseases and leave them untreated? Of course not—so why would we do the same to other beings? We must abandon the archaic and incorrect boundary of "human," which we use to justify the ongoing massacre of billions of beings.
More than a century ago, Charles Darwin showed that all beings had the same common ancestor. All beings share the desire to live. We all feel pain, joy, grief, and pleasure. We all have worth.
Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.
All beings desire freedom to live a natural life, according to their inherent desires and instincts. While the lives of all beings necessarily involve some amount of suffering, human beings must stop deliberately inflicting suffering on all beings for our own selfish desires. We lose nothing in replacing a cheeseburger with a veggie burger or a leather purse with a fabric one. But beings we exploit lose their lives just for our fleeting fancy.
We are taught from a young age to discriminate among beings. We are fooled into eating the flesh of some beings, ignoring the cries of hunted beings, and cuddling with furry baby beings. We grow up confused—as adults, most of us feel sick and sad when we see living beings tortured and killed, yet we purchase and consume the flesh, fur, secretions, and skin of living beings every day. We work hard to deceive ourselves and each other in order to maintain the illusion of a real boundary around "human."
The threats of economic collapse, the defiant claims of inherent rights, and the stubborn refusal to change behavior—these tired arguments have been heard and overcome many times in the past. Every time a boundary shifts, the suffragists or the abolitionists or the emancipators are at first ridiculed and belittled for their stance of equal consideration. Eventually, the lies are exposed, and freedom is won—for women, blacks, Christians, gays, Asians, the Irish, Catholics, Jews. Let freedom now include all beings.
We are all animals.
Human beings have few, if any, unique capabilities—many beings can learn languages, enjoy complex social bonds, sacrifice pleasure for the good of others, use tools, imagine, and dream. Many beings remember information, play with friends, enjoy intimacy, gossip, and mourn their deceased. Some beings have enormous capabilities beyond our own—in navigation, endurance, communication, and detection of natural phenomena. We don't yet fully understand how all beings think—or what they think—but dismissing their mental world as less developed, rational, moral, or intelligent than our own is clearly a mistake.
Regardless of their capabilities, no living being deserves to be abused. We believe that it's wrong to torture infant and disabled human beings who don't have the same abilities as adults. In the same way, all beings deserve liberty and respect notbecause they share the characteristics we admire in ourselves but because they areliving beings. We share the same evolutionary origins, we inhabit the same Earth, and we are ruled by the same laws of nature. We are all the same.
Posted by libertyandjusticeforanimals at 7:11 PM
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Monday, January 12, 2015
Rudimentary Peni Pig in a Blanket anarcho hardcor…: http://youtu.be/ZD0Jh8Jn7os
Posted by libertyandjusticeforanimals at 10:05 PM
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Friday, January 2, 2015
Why the Animals Need Religion by Norm Phelps
Taken as a whole, the animal rights movement is hostile to religion. And this is tragic because until animal rights gains the support of at least a sizable chunk of mainstream religion, we will always be marginalized. In America, campaigns for social justice succeed to the degree that they receive support from organized religion. Causes that enjoy the sponsorship of our churches and synagogues become public policy; those that do not remain marginal or vanish from view. It has been this way throughout our history. The original call to end human slavery came from men and women in England whose religious faith inspired them to speak out against evil. These included George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, and his fellow Quaker John Woolman, John Wesley, founder of Methodism, and Richard "Humanity Dick" Martin and William Wilberforce, both of whom credited their social conscience to religious conviction. On this side of the Atlantic, their cry was taken up by religiously inspired abolitionists like Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Maria W. Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, and Frederick Douglass. In 1783, eighty years before emancipation, the Society of Friends yearly meeting for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, western Maryland, and western Virginia (the largest and most influential Quaker meeting in the country) petitioned Congress to abolish slavery. Right up to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, churches were the most popular settings for anti-slavery rallies, while their members filled the ranks of the abolitionist movement, and the language of the Sunday morning sermon became the language of abolition, filled with appeals to Christian mercy and divine justice, drawing the parallel between the American slavery of Africans and the Egyptian slavery of the Israelites, while celebrating emancipation as "crossing the Jordan" and freedom as "the Promised Land." Nearly a century later, the civil rights movement picked up where the abolitionists had left off. Born in the churches of Atlanta and Birmingham after World War II, it spread first through the black churches of the south, then those of the north, and finally to white churches and synagogues across the country. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was the movement's single most influential leader, and his closest associates, Ralph David Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Floyd McKissick, and Jesse Jackson were Baptist ministers; two others, Edgar Nixon and A. Philip Randolph, were the sons of ministers, and yet another, Bayard Rustin, was raised on the Quaker philosophy of his grandmother and educated at Wilberforce College, which taught the Christian social gospel of its namesake, William Wilberforce. They were all inspired by their religious faith to take up the cause, and their followers came first and foremost from the churches. The organization they created, the largest, most important, and most effective civil rights organization of the 20th century, was called The Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As with the abolition movement, much of the rhetoric of the civil rights movement was the rhetoric of religion. Consider this brief passage from Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." "But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their 'thus saith the Lord' far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid." Dr. King is referring to Acts 16:9, which describes a vision in which Paul was visited by a Macedonian who begged him to "come and help us." Macedonia was a rough and tumble frontier province on the northern fringe of the Classical world. King is suggesting that he has been called by God to the land of the barbarians, where he will have to endure great hardships and risk great dangers. When, a few days before his death, Dr. King said, "I have been to the mountaintop, I have seen the promised land," he was identifying himself with Moses, who when death was upon him, was taken by God to the top of Mount Nebo, where he could look out and see the promised land that he would not live to enter. And more importantly, he was identifying African- Americans suffering under segregation with the suffering of the Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt. Those were identifications that resonated with Americans of all races and religions because the stories of the Bible are as much a part of the American mythology as Paul Revere and the Boston Tea Party—and they carry with them the moral authority that even secular Americans grant only to values that are rooted in religion. Even Malcolm X, who is often portrayed as the polar opposite of Martin Luther King, and after him was the most popular and influential civil rights leader, found his inspiration in religion – in his case, Islam – and invoked the moral authority of religion. Historians and sociologists, in thrall to the secularism which these days is a litmus test for respectability among people who fancy themselves intellectuals, treat the religious nature of the civil rights movement somewhat like a Victorian gentleman would have treated the case of a pregnant, unmarried sister: it is something not to be mentioned in polite company. To them the religious roots of the civil rights movement betray an embarrassing lack of sophistication. They prefer to patronize the black religious community by treating it as a purely social institution whose role was to lend logistical support to the civil rights movement, rather than as the spiritual organism that gave birth to it. But whether the academic community likes it or not, the most important contribution of the churches – black, white, and integrated – to the civil rights movement was not a communication network and ready-made audiences for activists; it was moral authority. When the pastors said that integration and equality before the law were right and that segregation and inequality were wrong, their congregations listened; and over time, so did the rest of America. It was the same pattern that had characterized the abolition movement a hundred years before. The women's suffrage movement grew out of the abolitionist movement, and the two shared many of the same religiously inspired leaders, including Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Frederick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison. Again, the nation's churches provided leadership, membership, and rallying places for the suffrage movement, as well as a rhetoric that carried a moral authority able to pull the rest of the country along in its wake. Churches became battlegrounds in the struggle for women's suffrage, especially in the west, where harsh necessity had forced women to work, fight, and endure hardship in a fashion that quickly disabused men of the ego inflating myth that women were the "weaker sex," unsuited by their gender to responsibility and power. If the modern feminist and gay and lesbian rights movements are less obviously rooted in religion than these earlier movements, it is nonetheless true that they have garnered the support of large segments of mainstream religion in America. Most denominations now ordain women pastors, deacons, and bishops, and even the Roman Catholic Church, which does not, has its share of female theologians, such as Marie Hendrickx, a high-ranking Vatican staff member who is a close associate of Pope Benedict XVI, the very conservative former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Only in the far extremes of the evangelical Christian right do women who want to pursue careers in traditionally male dominated professions, and who expect to receive equal pay, equal treatment, and equal opportunities while doing so, meet with systemic disapproval. Although it has not, by and large, been shouting its support from the rooftops, mainstream American Christianity and Judaism have quietly accepted the goals of the feminist movement, at least as they apply in the secular world, and in so doing, have assured its lasting success. Likewise with homosexual rights. The recent appointment of an openly gay bishop by the Episcopal Church is only the most visible evidence of a change that has been slowly and quietly taking place in liberal and mainstream congregations around the country over the past three decades. Gay civil marriage could become a reality in America with little more than token objections from most mainstream congregations. Among Christians, only the evangelical right and the Catholic Church would line up solidly against it, and among Catholics, the issue would serve to open wider the already cavernous gap that exists between the hierarchy on the one hand and the laity and much of the clerical rank-and-file on the other. Like the women's movement, the gay and lesbian rights movement is bringing about a permanent revolution in American society in large part because its appeal to conscience has persuaded a major segment of the religious community to quietly support it. Progressivism Charges over the Cliff At the other end of the scale, the near total collapse of liberal and progressive movements that was the most important social development of the second half of the 20th century was due in large measure to the identification in the public mind of progressivism with aggressive secularism and atheism, and a corresponding identification of free-market conservatism with religion. When the leaders of the socialist, communist, and anarchist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries wrapped themselves in the banner of materialism and declared religion to be at best an irrelevant anachronism and at worst an instrument of oppression and "the opiate of the people," they were unwittingly arranging their own failure in the United States. And following World War II, the United States would intervene politically, militarily, and economically to bring about their failure in Europe. The much ballyhooed (at least until recent weeks; I am writing in December, 2008.) triumph of virtually unrestrained free-market capitalism is due in large part to the success of conservatives in identifying democratic socialism in the public mind with communism, and identifying both with atheism. By deliberately poking a finger in the eye of the religious community, the progressive movement succeeded in marginalizing itself for at least a full generation. We are an increasingly – and frighteningly – reactionary country today because the leadership of the progressive movements of the twentieth century heaped scorn on the religion which the overwhelming majority of Americans hold so dear (whether they actually practice it or not), while the robber barons of industry realized that by saying the right prayers and singing the right hymns they could persuade the public to vote against their own economic and social self-interest. If we do not want animal rights to go the way of decent public education, universal higher education, universal health care, and a social safety net that offers genuine protection to those who cannot cope on their own, we had better learn the lessons that the failure of these goals teaches. And the most important of those lessons is this: In our one nation under God, if religion is against you, you lose. A Holy Nation Only in Muslim countries is religion as dominant a factor in public life as in America. Because we are divided among a number of denominations, the profoundly religious orientation of the United States is not as apparent as the religious orientation of, say, the countries of Latin America where the vast majority belong to a single denomination, but it is actually stronger. Whether they actively practice it or not – whether or not they even believe most of it in their secret heart of hearts – most Americans look to religion for their moral values and their ethical principles. Thus, religion has a radiating influence that extends far beyond the walls of the church to permeate our entire culture. Our social and political discourse is framed in terms of religious concepts to a degree that is incomprehensible to Europeans and to most American progressives. But the latter, as we have seen, ignore it at their peril. Throughout the world as a whole, there are only two circumstances in which social movements can succeed while appearing to disrespect religion. The first is where the population is highly secularized and religion plays a very minor role in public life, as in Scandinavia. The second is where there is strong anti-clerical sentiment based on the church's historic alliance with an oppressive ruling class, as in Italy and much of Latin America. Neither circumstance obtains in the United States. In his book The European Dream, social analyst Jeremy Rifkin recites some mind-boggling numbers about religion in American life. Rather than simply rehearsing familiar statistics about religious affiliation and church attendance, let's focus on the more pertinent question of the role that religion plays in shaping Americans' values and their understanding of the world. According to Rifkin, who relies on published polling data by respected, independent groups like the Gallup Organization and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, "Nearly half of the American people say that it is necessary to believe in God to have good values," while 58% believe that "the strength of American society is 'predicated on the religious faith of its people.'" "Forty-five percent of Americans believe that 'God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so,' and an equal number believe that the second coming of Christ will occur in their lifetime." Sixty-eight percent of college graduates and 55% of holders of masters degrees and doctorates "believe in the devil." A whopping 82% of Americans believe in Heaven as a literal place to which souls go after death. Sixty percent of Americans "say that their faith is involved in every aspect of their lives," and 82% say that "God is very important to them." A public that describes their religious faith in these terms is not going to be responsive to an animal rights movement that treats religion as part of the problem and actively teaches that it ought to be replaced by a secular worldview. The Failures of Religion There can be no denying that animal advocates have good reason to be distrustful of religion. The Judeo-Christian tradition that is dominant in the United States has a miserable record on animals. Not only has it failed to provide leadership, it has more often been actively on the side of animal exploitation and murder, as is shown in the Jewish and Christian practice of thanking God before each meal for the dead flesh of murdered animals. Exhortations from the pulpit to show animals kindness generally have stopped far short of suggestions that we ought not be abusing and killing them for our own purposes. And it is certainly no coincidence that Western Europe, where personal lifestyle and public policy are much less shaped by religion than they are here, is far ahead of the United States in the protection of animals. But it is equally true that many of the same churches that now defend animal slavery as ordained by God once defended human slavery on the same basis, and not without justification. There are several passages in the Bible that approve of human slavery, while there is no passage in the Bible that condemns it. The Bible actually lends more support to animal rights than to the abolition of human slavery. And yet, as we have seen, the movement to end slavery was born and nurtured in the churches, White churches as well as Black. And it is this pattern that we must strive to replicate. Religious abolitionists like Garrison and Douglass generally ignored the passages in the Bible that could be quoted in support of slavery. Instead, they focused on the passages that express the heart of the Bible's spiritual message, such as "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," "Blessed are the merciful," and "Blessed are the meek." Slavery, they repeated over and over again, is incompatible with the Bible's overarching message. The Bible's teachings on love and mercy can only be understood as a condemnation of slavery. This is the same message that we must take to the churches and synagogues of America. Animal exploitation – animal agriculture, vivisection, hunting, fishing, rodeos, and so on – are incompatible with the Bible's overarching message. Jewish and Christian teachings on love and mercy can only be understood as a condemnation of animal exploitation. Imprisoning, torturing, and killing God's innocent sentient creatures for our own benefit cannot be reconciled with Judaism's and Christianity's teachings on love, self-sacrifice, and mercy. The Bible clearly and consistently teaches that animals are sentient beings, able to suffer just as we are. The Bible also teaches that, like us, animals have immortal souls and will be present in the Kingdom of Heaven (the Messianic Age). Building on this foundation, we must repeat over and over again, to everyone who is willing to listen, and some who aren't, that animal exploitation violates the foundational teachings of Judaism and Christianity on love and mercy. If the abolitionists had thrown up their hands in disgust at the level of support for slavery in White churches and condemned religion, they would have sabotaged their own cause by alienating almost the entirety of the American public. If we throw up our hands in disgust at the level of support for animal abuse in America's churches and synagogues, we will set back the animals' cause by at least a generation and probably more. Like the old abolitionists, we must convert the churches, not write them off. Among Christians, we will make the best progress by starting with the liberal and traditionally mainstream churches, including (among others, I do not mean to rule out a denomination by not mentioning it) Unitarian-Universalist, Quaker, the churches of the Anglican Communion, the Dutch Reformed Churches, the more moderate Lutheran congregations, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Church of the Brethren, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Congregationalists, the Eastern Orthodox churches (which have an ancient tradition dating back to the Desert Fathers of ethical vegetarianism and respect for animals), and, interestingly enough, the more liberal elements of the Roman Catholic Church. There are several very dynamic inter-denominational groups, including the Christian Vegetarian Association, led by Dr. Steven Kaufmann, Viatoris Ministries and Humane Religion Magazine, founded by the late Rev. J. R. Hyland, God's Creatures Ministry, led by Janice Fredericks, and All-Creatures.Org, led by United Methodist minister Rev. Frank Hoffman and his wife Mary. The mainstream, secular animal rights movement ought to be reaching out to these groups and to the churches, and offering them resources and support. PETA is the role model here with an outstanding program of outreach to religious communities – created and guided by their vice president for international grassroots campaigns Bruce Friedrich, a devout Catholic. And it is an encouraging sign that The Humane Society of the United States has recently created a religious outreach program headed by Christine Gutleben. Judaism has always had a stronger tradition of respect for animals than most Christian denominations, and except for the so-called ultra-orthodox, all the major branches of Judaism, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist are potentially open to the animals' cause. Here, groups like Jewish Vegetarians of North America, founded and led by Dr. Richard Schwartz, and Jews for Animal Rights, founded and led by Dr. Roberta Kalechofsky, are doing outstanding work. Again, they need more support from the secular animal protection movement. Islam, which is becoming increasingly important in the United States, combines a strong tradition of animal welfare with an equally strong opposition to animal rights. Just as Judaism is the Abrahamic religion most open to the animal rights message, I believe that Islam will prove to be the least open. But there are voices within Islam speaking out in defense of animals, such as the late Al-Hafiz B. A. Masri, the Saudi-born imam of an influential English mosque, who called for an end to vivisection and animal agriculture. A Built-in Bias Far too many of the leaders of the animal rights movement have a personal animus toward religion that disinclines them to reach out to the religious community on behalf of animals. Some are anti-religion on principle. They believe that religion is an outmoded superstition that needs to be done away with for the general good of humanity and society. Unfortunately, the recent ascendancy of the religious right in America has reinforced this attitude in those already in that camp, and pushed into it others who had not been there previously. To them I can only say two things. First, you are never going to convert the American public to atheism. And if you persist in identifying animal rights with a materialist worldview, you will condemn the animals to unending abuse. Second, the religious right does not represent true religion. The religious fundamentalism wedded to political fascism that is threatening to destroy the American way of life is alien to the spirit of authentic faith, which is reflected in the teachings of the Later Prophets and Jesus and represented by the ages old principles of "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," and "Blessed are the merciful." It is to believers who live by these themes that we must appeal, not the fundamentalists who pay them lip service while living by a code of militancy that displays love and mercy only toward those who agree with them. Other movement leaders (and rank and file as well) believe that animal abuse arises from and is reinforced by the dominionist outlook of Judaism and Christianity, which are inherently hostile to animals. This view finds its most thoughtful and articulate expression in An Unnatural Order by Jim Mason, an environmental and animal rights pioneer whose expose of factory farming, Animal Factories (co-authored with Peter Singer), has found a well-deserved place in the first rank of animal rights classics. Near the end of An Unnatural Order, Mason gives a passing nod to traditions within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam that are friendly to women, animals, and the environment. Then he notes that these traditions "would, if revived, contribute some healing to the spiritual, sexual, and environmental crises we now find ourselves in. One hopes that the progressive faithful can find them and successfully revive them." The conditional verb and the limiting "some" in the first sentence suck the life out of the hope expressed in the second. As long as the animal rights movement sits passively on the sidelines and refuses to address religion with both respect and uncompromising moral force, Mason's "hope" will remain forlorn. But Mason is right about one thing, those traditions are there, and they reach in unbroken lineage back to the ultimate wellsprings of human morality, which are in every society religious. In the Abrahamic religions, they reach back to "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," "Blessed are the merciful," "Blessed are the peacemakers." One of the fundamental challenges facing the animal rights movement is showing modern Christians, Jews, and Muslims what these statements mean for our relationship to animals in the modern world. Our task is not to discredit or revise religious ethics. Quite the opposite. Our task is to highlight the ethical teachings that already stand at the heart of the great religions, and show that they apply equally to all of God's sentient creatures. The teachings that would deny animals the full protection of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic ethics did not originate in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. They originated in Classical Greek philosophy, specifically in the teachings of Aristotle and the Stoics. They are alien imports into the Abrahamic religions, and therefore, they are not of the essence of these faiths. (For a description of this process, see Phelps, The Longest Struggle, pp. 34-36 and 52-58.) It is universal, boundless love and compassion that are of their essence, and that can lead the religious communities to animal rights, just at universal, boundless love and compassion have led them to human rights without regard for such morally irrelevant factors as race, nationality, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. In fact, the core ethical teaching of all the world's major religions is identical. It is unbounded, universal love and compassion. And this creates at the heart of each of the great religions a natural receptivity to the animal rights message. At present, this door of receptivity is most often blocked by selfish barricades that would limit our love and compassion to other human beings. But, as we have seen, similar barricades have just as often and just as fiercely blocked members of other races, nationalities, or religions from the love and compassion of the faithful, and those barricades were overcome when they were shown to be at odds with the ethical heart of the faith. In fact, the conflict between fundamentalism and the more generous forms of religion (in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and other faiths) can be best understood as the struggle between those who would limit religion's ethical teachings to a small, restricted group of "deserving" recipients, and those who would apply them as they were originally formulated—to all who stand in need of love, acceptance, and mercy. A False Messiah I do not share the hope of some that the replacement of a religious, spiritual worldview by a "scientific," materialist worldview will advance the animals' cause. Historically, science has treated animals no better than religion, and scientists are in the forefront of contemporary animal abusers. Darwin may have believed that nonhuman animals have rich interior lives not much different from our own and that this has serious implications for our treatment of them, but subsequent generations of scientists have ignored this aspect of his work. Vivisection (which even Darwin supported) is the creation of science, not religion, and one-hundred percent of vivisectors are scientists. Biological, medical, chemical, and social scientists have not hesitated to imprison, torture, and murder vast numbers of animals in the name of science. Geneticists routinely create "transgenic" animals who are deliberately designed to suffer from diseases and other painful, disabling, and lethal abnormalities that make them useful in experiments. They have gone beyond inflicting suffering on already living beings to designing beings whose suffering is built into them, an atrocity beyond the grasp of earlier generations of abusers. The fathers of modern vivisection, Francois Magendie and Claude Bernard, were among the nineteenth century's foremost opponents of religion and leading advocates for the scientific worldview. But that did not stop them from conducting experiments on unanesthetized animals so cruel that they almost single-handedly gave rise to the anti-vivisection movement in Europe and North America. The dominionist outlook of the Abrahamic religions does not cause animal exploitation, and abolishing religion will not end it. We exploit animals because we enjoy the products of animal exploitation and we can do so with impunity. Dominionism simply provides an after-the-fact justification for what we already want to do. This is why animal exploitation is not limited to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim countries, but is found everywhere on Earth, regardless of religion, culture, history, or economic system. We like the results, and we can get away with it. If religion were abolished tomorrow, the animal exploiters would never miss a beat. They would simply find a new justification, and life—and death—would go on as before, business as usual, just as scientists have found a nonreligious justification for their cruelties and killings. Until we are made to face the pure evil of what we are doing, we will always find a defense of animal exploitation in whatever belief system we adopt. In the final analysis, the argument for animal rights is entirely a moral argument, based on compassion. It is wrong for humankind to inflict suffering and premature death on sentient creatures because we enjoy the taste of their flesh, milk, or eggs, or we think their skin looks and feels good on our feet, or we hope that if we torture and kill enough animals we can extend our own lives, or whatever. That is the alpha and the omega of animal rights. There may be other, entirely valid, reasons for doing things that advance the animals' cause – such as adopting a vegan diet to improve our health, or eliminating animal agriculture to reduce global warming and end world hunger—but there is no reason other than morality for granting animals rights. And the arbiter of American morality is religion. As long as our rabbis, priests, pastors, and—increasingly—imams are telling Americans that animal exploitation is not wrong, the bulk of Americans will see no reason to give up their prime rib, their leather shoes, the research that may cure cancer, or the circus elephants that their kids enjoy so much. When you are making a moral argument, as we are, the refusal to make it to the very people and institutions that honor morality above all else here on earth is irresponsible. We have a powerful moral and spiritual argument on behalf of animals. And like the abolitionists and civil rights advocates of old, we need to use it.
Posted by libertyandjusticeforanimals at 10:25 AM
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This page is for an institution to upload a document that contains:
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Sports Birthdays for July 20 — Ray Allen and More
Here are some of the people in the sports world celebrating birthdays on July 20:
Mike Ilitch
Age: 83
Profession: Sports Franchise Owner
Best Known For: Having made his fortune with Little Caesars Pizza, Mike Ilitch is the owner of both the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers. Under Ilitch's ownership, the Red Wings have won
15 divisional championships and four Stanley Cups (1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008). Ilitch was at the center of the effort to move the Tigers from Tiger Stadium into their modern home of Comerica Park in 2000.
James Harris
Age: 65
Profession: Retired NFL Player
Best Known For: A Pro Bowl quarterback in 1974, James Harris played for the Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Rams and San Diego Chargers during a professional career that lasted from 1969 to 1981. In 1969, Harris became the first black player to start an entire season at quarterback, as he led the Buffalo offense while the franchise was still part of the American Football League. Harris helped guide the Rams to the playoffs in 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1976.
Peter Forsberg
Age: 39
Profession: Retired NHL Player
Best Known For: A seven-time NHL All-Star, Peter Forsberg was among the best all-around players in hockey during his playing career from 1989 to 2011 with the Quebec Nordiques, Colorado Avalanche, Philadelphia Flyers and Nashville Predators. In addition to winning the Calder Memorial Trophy as the Rookie of the Year in 1995 and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player in 2003, Forsberg was a member of the Colorado Avalanche teams that won the Stanley Cup in 1996 and 2001. Forsberg was on the Swedish national teams that won gold medals at the 1994 and 2006 Winter Olympics.
Bengie Molina
Age: 38
Profession: Retired MLB Player
Best Known For: A two-time Gold Glove Award winner, catcher Bengie Molina was a solid defensive backstop who played for the Anaheim Angels, Toronto Blue Jays, San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers from 1998 to 2010. He was a member of the Angels' team that won the 2002 World Series. Molina's younger brothers, José and Yadier, are current major league catchers.
Ray Allen
Age: 37
Profession: NBA Player
Best Known For: A 10-time All-Star shooting guard, Ray Allen is the NBA's all-time leader in three-point field goals made and attempted. After being named a First-Team All-American in his final year at Connecticut in 1996, Allen has had a long NBA career with the Milwaukee Bucks, Seattle SuperSonics and Boston Celtics. He was a member of the Celtics' team that won the 2008 championship. Off the court, Allen has acted in two films, including a lead role in the 1998 movie 'He Got Game.' Allen signed a free agent contract with the Miami Heat after the 2012 season.
Pavel Datsyuk
Age: 34
Profession: NHL Player
Best Known For: A four-time winner of the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for sportsmanship, Pavel Datsyuk is an exceptional offensive and defensive forward for the Detroit Red Wings. He won the Frank J. Selke Trophy as best defensive forward in 2008, 2009 and 2010. A four-time All-Star, Datsyuk was a member of the Red Wings' teams that won the Stanley Cup in 2002 and 2008. He is a member of the Russian national team.
Troy Smith
Age: 28
Profession: Pro Football Player
Best Known For: After winning the 2006 Heisman Trophy at Ohio State University, Troy Smith has had an uneventful professional career. After being selected in the fifth round of the 2007 NFL Draft by the Baltimore Ravens, Smith played for the team through 2009. After spending 2010 with the San Francisco 49ers, Smith played with the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League in 2011.


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Few Hamptons pleasures compare to sitting by the water, enjoying a lobster, soaking in the very essence of summer on the East End. With that vision in mind, our Top 100 Songs of Summer Countdown continues with a classic that, if not entirely culinary, captures the offbeat down-by-the-beach fun that Dan's Papers finds so appealing.
Hamptons 100 Songs of Summer #38
"Rock Lobster" by the B-52s
Here's the single-song soundtrack to the most surreal clambake (or is that crayfish bake?) you've ever been invited to, a New Wave/post-punk/poppy bouilabaise of catfish and dogfish and jellyfish and red snappers and narwhals and bikini fish, seahorses sailin' and dolphins wailin'—and people dancing down, down, down in the sand. The 1979 release gave the B-52s their first Billboard Hot 100 hit and, the story goes, inspiration to John Lennon to end a five-year recording hiatus after hearing its Yoko Ono–esque inspired aspects. How many crustaceans can say that?


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"It's easy to find problems when you're a five-time world champion."
As contradictory as that statement by Carlos Alberto Parreira might seem, it does make perfect sense. And it also shows why A Seleção are happy to have him on board as their technical director, to have someone tell them how it is, as he did on this occasion, on leaving the dressing room at the Maracana following one of Brazil's most notable victories of the last few decades.
Parreira knows better than anyone what Brazil are up against. A FIFA World Cup™ winner as a fitness coach at Mexico 1970 and as head coach at USA 1994, he also took charge of the national team at Germany 2006.
All that talk about a goalscoring midfielder is great for the media. But when you've got attacking fullbacks like ours, like Daniel Alves and Marcelo, you need to have protection.
As he knew only too well, no sooner would the nation start celebrating the memorable 3-0 defeat of Spain than people would begin raising doubts and asking questions: Was the team peaking too soon? Would such a handsome victory not put pressure on the team? Was there not a danger of the side becoming complacent and starting to believe the hype in the lead-up to the main event in 2014? In Parreira's view, the answers to all those questions can be found in the figure of his colleague and fellow world champion, Luiz Felipe Scolari.
"This coaching team has a vast amount of experience," Parreira told FIFA.comin the aftermath of last Sunday's dramatic FIFA Confederations Cup Final. "Felipão is a world champion and so am I. Everyone on the team here – the fitness coaches, the doctors and the physios – are all world champions and they know exactly what we need and what we want.
"In the press conference after the final Felipão said the right thing, that this is just part of a process. We showed the fans what we can do and we showed the rest of the world that we are on the way to becoming dangerous opponents and to improving this team. But we're not ready yet. We've come on a lot, but we still need a little bit of polish."
What a difference a month makesThe speed of A Seleção's recent progress has taken everyone by surprise, including the people responsible for it. It is hard to believe that only four weeks prior to their triumph over Spain, Brazil came in for widespread criticism for playing out a lacklustre 2-2 draw against England at the Maracana.
Nor, in the wake of Luiz Gustavo's superb tournament – capped by his exceptional display against Spain – does it seem credible that Felipão came in for some bad press for making this comment in his own inimitable style: "All that talk about a goalscoring midfielder is great for the media. It's great for them, but it's not so great for the coach or the team. When you've got attacking fullbacks like ours, like Daniel Alves and Marcelo, you need to have protection."
The success of the current coaching staff is down to the decisions they have made and the fact they have stuck to them. Those decisions have included deploying a more withdrawn midfielder alongside Paulinho and maintaining faith in the central-defensive pairing of Thiago Silva and David Luiz, whose place in the team is now unquestioned. The roles of Julio Cesar and Fred as first-choice in goal and up front are also now secure. Meanwhile the link-up men behind the latter, such as Hulk and Oscar, have their defensive duties to fulfil, and Neymar is the team's star man, the No10. As that all shows, there is a plan in place.
"Obviously we had to start a new cycle, and in response to that we drew up a strategic plan," explained Parreira, before referring to the personnel and tactical changes he and his colleagues have made in the process. "If you look at the team for our first friendly against England (a 2-1 defeat back on 6 February), you'll see it's very different to the side today.
"The aim was to find a style of play and we've done that. When you've got 15 straight days to prepare for a tournament you can start to see a tactical plan coming together, you can work on details and bring back experienced players who were out of favour but whom we knew had potential."
Ultimate target still remains
As someone who was also very much a part of previous coach Mano Menezes' plans, and who has had to do more than most to adapt their natural game to the system adopted by Scolari and Parreira, Oscar has seen the whole process unfold at first hand. The Chelsea man is but one example of how the keys to success at Brazil 2013 involved much more than just the choice of playing personnel.
One of five players – alongside Marcelo, Thiago Silva, Hulk and Neymar – to feature in the Men's Olympic Football Tournament London 2012 final and to start against Spain last weekend – Oscar told FIFA.com: "We needed time. We knew that this was a very talented generation, which has come through the Olympic Games and is now playing in the full national team.
"I'm not saying that we expected to hit this level so soon, because we didn't, but I know we prepared really well. That's because we spent a bit more time together, which we'd never done before."
The tournament showed that we're one of the best teams on the planet, but that's not the objective: winning the World Cup is.
All in all, the formula seems to be a simple one: bring together a group of talented players with international experience, identify the tactics you want to use, train the side for a few weeks, put the tactics into practice, and look on as the team turns in one of the finest performances in the nation's history, guaranteeing the support of the fans in the process.
As the ever-cautious Parreira explained, however, the reality is a little different: "The Confederations Cup gave us an opportunity to restore the confidence of the fans and to cook up that chemistry between the supporters and the team, which was amazing and something I've never seen before. But we know all that can change very quickly. Nobody should be under the impression that we're going to rest on our laurels now, because we still haven't achieved what we set out to do."
Echoing that view, Oscar said: "The tournament showed that we're one of the best teams on the planet, but that's not the objective: winning the World Cup is."


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This article is from the archive of our partner .
France finally became the 14th country to legalize gay marriage on Saturday when President Francois Hollande signed the bill that legalizes same sex marriage into law. But ugly protests that have marked the legal process will continue even now that the bill is passed.
The country's Constitutional Council approved the law on Friday, clearing the last hurdle before Hollande's signature was required to make it a reality. The bill was passed by the French parliament in April. The French opposition party had tried to argue the bill violated the constitution, but the Council disagreed. They ruled same sex marriage "did not run contrary to any constitutional principles", and that it doesn't violate "basic rights or liberties or national sovereignty." So there you have it: France finally joined the elite club of countries where gay marriage is legal. Hollande campaigned on bringing gay marriage to France and, at the end of the day, he achieved it. He'll always have that to fall back on (it's not going that well otherwise) no matter what else happens during his presidency.
Despite polls showing the majority of France supports gay marriage, ugly and sometimes violent protests have come hand-in-hand with the legal fight over gay marriage. Opposers have shown up in massive numbers to protest the gay marriage bill. And despite their legal loss, they plan to continue protesting. French humorist and one of the country's mout outspoken gay marriage critics Frigide Barjot is already planning a May 26 protest. She promises millions of people will join her in protest even though the legal fight is over.
Seems like a productive use of time.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
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You took me to a valley, a deep, dark, ominous land. You pointed the way and asked me to go through. You made it clear that only I could walk through it, alone, but you weaved character and stamina of heart together with thread and twine of pain and hope. The twine seems so harsh and hard, rough, painful as it cuts into the heart beating flesh, but the thread is fine, gold laced, with soothing salve that brings peace with every beat.
It is velvety soft, but iron clad, happy yet sad, good and bad, all at the same time.
And now, You tell me:
Go now through the dark place. I will not carry you, nor walk for you, for you alone must take the steps. You must both descend, and climb, the rugged trail. Know this, however, know that I number your steps as I do your days. You lift your foot. I'll light your path. You take the steps. I'll guide your way.
When you are in the darkest forests, in the sticky, confining place where lungs can't breathe, where every gasp feels as if it were the last, you will not teeter over the edge into the abyss, for that is already settled. You must, however, resist the darkness and embrace hope however dim it may seem.
If you stumble, even for a moment, gather your strength. Talk to Me. Stand back up. Press on.
Even when death feels forever present, I can save you. Eat, if only the crumbs from the table, eat, for the bread you need will pulse through both the twine and thread in your heart.
The valley may be darker than your worst imagination. Do not despair. If you knew what the valley held, you would never go, but for now, that is where I point you.
When you feel lost, know you are found. When you feel blind, know that you see. When clouds pour rain upon your naked, afflicted soul, when warmth quickly fades from life, call to Me. I will hear, for it is not by strength, nor by power, but by My spirit you shall go.
You must walk the valley of the shadow of death alone, but know that I hear your every thought and feel every pain, for I am there with you. Though you cannot see Me, you will know my presence, an ever present help in the time of need.
Go now, my son. Walk on. Don't stop. Push ahead.
You will be injured, wounded, deeply scarred. Your heart will change, your perspective narrow, your wisdom shall grow.
After you come out of the valley, you will be stronger in your weakness, better in meekness, enduring in humility. For now, however, you must simply walk and believe.
This is true, for I shall be on the other side. I will greet you. My scarred hands shall pull you to Myself when one day I welcome you to a new home far from the valleys, far above the mountain tops.
You shall see. But for now, you must walk by faith, not by sight.
Go. Go now. The valley waits.
So do I.


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I was riding the ferry with my younger brother, on our way to see our Mom who lived on an island. A boy, one with a reputation of being a tough-guy bully kept poking fun at my brother.
I was a shy, little thing. I never spoke to anyone unless they spoke to me first. I was meek and anxious. I sat there, pretending I didn't hear the bully's words.
But inside I was seeing red. My blood was boiling. My brother struggled most of his childhood with a learning disability and he was always the target of the crueler kids. The anger and hatred was growing and growing… Until I snapped.
I stood up and pushed him and told him to leave my brother alone. I think I even swore and called him a few names. He quickly left us alone.
I was left shaking. And tears were forming in my eyes. It was against my very nature to raise my voice and use mean words. But if there was anything that could make me go outside of that bubble, it was my fierce need to protect my younger siblings.
Last night, that memory from over 20 years ago popped up.
Apparently Corbin was playing outside with his aunt, brother, and cousins yesterday afternoon when a neighborhood child asked, "What is wrong with him?".
My sister and my niece quickly answered with the correct answer, "Nothing is wrong with him. He just has something called autism."
The child replied, "What is that? Some kind of stupid disease?".
Corbin has definitely had children ask him about his brother on many occasions and he usually does a wonderful job using it as a teaching experience. But we all have those days where our limits are already maxed.
Corbin immediately went into defensive mode telling the child to go away and asking his brother to go inside so he wouldn't hear what the child was saying. He was in near tears and was convinced the child was being mean to Brian and that Brian would hear it and feel bad about himself.
By the time I had arrived home from work, everyone was calm and my sister had applied all the right words and hugs to subside the hurt feelings.
Corbin and I had a heart-to-heart later in the evening. His head in my lap, his hands covering his eyes, he told me that he felt angry and sad and that he worries a lot about his brother. I told him his feelings were okay to have. That I, too, on different occasions felt sad and angry. Other times I felt proud, excited, and happy.
He rubbed my cheek and said, "Mom you are never sad about autism."
This, in itself, made me want to cry as I told him that every day I worried about autism and whether I was making all the right choices for his brother. I told him that there were days when we had to miss out on things or if I felt like I couldn't give the boys equal attention that I felt angry. I told him there were accomplishments that made me want to burst with how proud I was. I told him that I wasn't a superhuman, and that it was okay to feel all of those feelings.
He then told me that he always wanted to protect his brother.
I've struggled with this notion over the years. I want Corbin to live his own life. I want him to chase his dreams. I don't want him to always feel like he needs to be another set of eyes on Brian. I don't want him to have to feel responsible for Brian. I don't want his childhood to be dictated by his brother's disability.
But I thought of myself 20 years ago, protecting my own siblings, and I just told him how proud I was of him. I want him to stick up for his brother. I want him to stick up for everyone in this world that gets judged simply because of the way they were born. I want him to stick up against the injustices of the world. If his innate response is to protect, then I think he's on the right path. I couldn't be more proud.


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DTH Artistic Director Virginia Johnson
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Dance Calendar July 2014
For their 14th season, Roberto Villanueva, executive artistic director and founder of BalaSole Dance Company, presents 10 dancer-choreographers in "Melange" at Ailey Citigroup Theater. This new program will feature "a broad range of dance styles, music choices and artistic voices," according to the release. The artists featured this season are Sara Braun, Chloe Cappo, Misei Daimaru, Alvaro Gonzalez, Steven Jeudy, Katie Kilbourn, Roberto Lara, Courtney Liu, Kendra Ross and Villanueva. For more information, visit www.balasoledance.org.